OpVendetta Roundup: November 5 hacks, defaces, tricks, and dox

Remember, remember the Fifth of November. Which you should, as it was only last night.

While much of the world was asleep, at work, or filling out forms in an unemployment office, Anonymous was busy around the world hacking, doxing, defacing, and even marching IRL (In Real Life). And, as always, assorted others were busy making mischief and blaming it on Anons. As Hell opens its mouth and releases its demons on Halloween, as well-kept households sweep out the accumulated dust of the winter in spring cleaning, so Anonymous on November 5 releases all manner of flotsam, jetsam, and doxam of the internets, regardless how monumental, or otherwise. I’ve rounded up the most prominent actions of the last 24 hours.

VMware sourcecode

This proprietary code was leaked November 4 North American time, and confirmed by the company itself in a hastily-issued advisory which pointed out the code leaked dated to 2004, and encouraged users to update their software.

28,000 Paypal ID’s and passwords leaked

A very splashy leak indeed, the money shot of November 5, this sent thousands of netizens scuttling to their keyboards to hastily change their passwords. Very wise; however, this turned out to be a high-profile fakeout, as it was actually data from Zpanel instead, a open source web hosting control panel. It’s never a bad idea to change your passwords anyway. The original paste links are all down now.

ImageShack and Symantec leaks

These were real, although picture hosting site ImageShack no longer cuts quite the swathe it did in its heyday. The actual databases and code were leaked in an enormous paste which also included personal dox. Somewhat more serious for Symantec, an anti-virus, anti-malware personal security provider than for ImageShack. This and the ZPanel hacks were claimed by Hack The Planet, a group which has often been in opposition to Anonymous. They released an enormous “zine” of leaks, which they had apparently been saving for some time.

Law Enforcement Credit Card Leaks

A cornucopia leak collecting Columbian prison emails, Stratfor Latin American intelligence leaks, and alleged law enforcement officer credit card details appeared on the http://sprunge.us/ site. Coincidentally (?) all the credit cards expire this month. No harm no foul, eh?

Anonymous vs NBC

Indeed, something took NBC’s video site offline early in the morning, and credit, such as there may be, was quickly claimed by someone named “pyknic,” but the connection to Anonymous is tenuous. The deface specifically referenced Anonymous and the 5th of November, but Anonymous has no known beef with NBC. The same hacker defaced Lady Gaga site Gaga Daily for a short time.

Defacing Peruvian, Ecuadorian, Turkish, and Australian Websites

No particular reason was forthcoming for the multiple attacks on Peruvian websites, but Australia has been in Anonymous’ sites since its Prime Minister labeled Aussie Julian Assange a “criminal,” and its privacy campaigners are some of the most assertive in the world, in contrast to a government which seeks greater control and surveillance. Defaces included many government sites as well as SharpCopiers.com.au. Ecuador has famously offered asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, but that didn’t save it from a half-dozen defacements and outages. In Turkey, the site for the national justice system was taken offline for an indeterminate period today. RedHack has been a very active Turkish branch of Anonymous, and as of this writing the Turkish state railroad site is still defaced.

Canadians getting angry

I know! How likely is that? But #StopHarper and #OpPartyCrasher were a real thing, if only moderately effective. Striking back at Canada’s Conservative government for what many see as draconian privacy invasion, they took victoews.ca offline for several hours (he was the MP who sponsored the most contentious laws) and attempted to DDoS the website of the Finance Minister, which they claim they took offline for 3.25 hours. CanadiAnons were also encouraged to flood the communication lines of Blake Richards, who sponsored a bill making it illegal to wear a mask during a protest or riot.

UK Department of Defence passwords leaked

Again, real. But not Anonymous per se: this was done and claimed by Nullcrew, a separate hacker group, and released on AnonPaste, the leak platform hosted by Par:AnoIA. Was it really an “easy as fuck SQL injection” that got this info? “Your webmaster made a terrible mistake… You may criticize us on the simplicity of the vulnerability. But if you can get so much useful data so easily, why wouldn’t you? We hope that all governments and organizations realize that #FuckTheSystem is definitely not a joke.”

Anonymous vs Zynga, Facebook, and Karl Rove

Alas, despite massive PR buildup, this was a complete squib. Nothing whatsoever happened to any of the three today. Other than that bitch that unfriended you (oops, spoiler!).

Database leak of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe

A very real hack, although it’s not clear what possible advantage could be gained by hacking an appliance app company. If your toaster sasses you this morning, blame these guys.

Alan Moore releases song for Occupy

Nobody saw this coming, but it did. Alan Moore, author of Anon-inspirational text V for Vendetta, released a single in support of the Occupy movement. It’s called “The Decline of English Murder”

TYLER

Anonymous’ touted peer-to-peer, censorship-free platform has apparently entered beta-testing, although with something as opaque as TYLER it’s hard to tell what that actually means.

OpVendetta Trending

The Anonymous hashtag for November 5 operations trended globally and locally according to this map passed along by Cypherpunks.

OpVendetta IRL

Anonymous’ premiere event, OpVendetta, was a real life homage to the finale of Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta. Thousands of mask-wearing Anons marched on the Houses of Parliament in London, in a simple show of solidarity and power. Lowballers set the attendance at a mere 200, and boosters set it at “over 9000,” but photos, along with more credible onsite reports estimated about 2000 real life V’s converging on Westminster at 8pm, the fateful hour of November 5. Neither explosions nor fatalities were reported. The press release said, “This is the centrepiece of a worldwide Anonymous operation of global strength and solidarity, a warning to all governments worldwide that if they keep trying to censor, cut, imprison, or silence the free world or the free internet they will not be our governments for much longer.Change is coming.”

Whether or not the world is any different today…well, that’s up to all of us.